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Space-Time

2 (14.3%)

Hammer Time

3 (21.4%)

Time...to die.

6 (42.9%)

Peanut Butter Jelly Time

3 (21.4%)

Total Members Voted: 14

[Madman198237]

First off, what says it will be clunky? It just has to be heavily armored instead of agile---a tradeoff that has been made hundreds of thousands of times throughout history, and has obviously not stopped being a valid military choice.

[Taricus]

With myomer, who says we'll need to take that trade-off?

[Madman198237]

Using myomer would, at best, push the decision back a bit---you can take more armor before you start seeing meaningful reductions in speed.

With Gravite, we can accomplish the same thing, except we can ALSO do awesome flying, armored airships and such.

[Taricus]

Not really, they'd still be pretty clunky. And a flying armoured airship isn't gonna be practical even with the stuff due to the ease of which manoeuvre can take place in the sky.

[NUKE9.13]

I mean, the carrier vs battleship fight isn't quite so clear cut as all that. What really killed battleships was missiles. And I really don't think we'll be seeing missiles in this war.

Also, flying battleships are cool, not by definition entirely impractical, therefore they are practical. That's how things work in a soft sci-fi arms race.

[Taricus]

Nah, but we can do worse things than missiles, namely, stuff like coilguns or lasers.

And a flying battleship is impractical due to it's cost effectiveness ratio. And if it really does look like a battleship in the sky, there's one great big stonking blind spot that's going to be easy to strike. Practicality comes first, otherwise we end up being the nazis

[NUKE9.13]

When I say flying battleship I don't mean literaly taking a sea-going vessel and making it fly. I mean, you know, this kind of thing. Guns all over the place.
Not hyper-focusing on practicality and going for cool stuff will only turn us into nazis if we let you make all the decisions, Taricus (no offence). Not everyone considers nazis to be the pinnacle of cool.

[Taricus]

You say that, except I'm focusing on the practical stuff. In essence, that would make us the soviets instead.

But for the most part, awesome-looking things that can only be produced in limited quantities, if not outright restricted to a single example. As to work on that image you posted, while there are guns everywhere, the big blind spot, the bottom, is the one thing that still makes them keenly vulnerable to smaller craft and/or anti-air emplacements.

[Jilladilla]

Nobody said that we were obligated to not put guns there and leave it armored only by a thin layer of sheet metal, Taricus.

Heck, our early ones are probably going to have more guns capable of pointing down than up!

[Taricus]

The problem with putting more guns on it is that it's going to get heavier and heavier. Not to mention the ammo is going to be closer to the bottom as well if we want a decent fire rate.

Simply put we really don't have the tech to really make something like that shine (Even with special materials, we simply don't have the tech for it). And it's not going to be able to hold ground either.

[NUKE9.13]

The problem with putting more guns on it is that it's going to get heavier and heavier.

Well, yes, hence the Gravite.

Anyway, whilst I'm not locked in, I'm going to put down my votes for now:

Research Credit Design:
GGG-12 (1): NUKE9.13

Regular Design:
GHMG-12 (1): Taricus
Gravite (1): NUKE9.13

E: This is an example of the sort of thing I'm talking about with flying warships:

KU-XX Flying Dreadnaught: It is a well known fact that he who holds the high ground automatically wins. Well, that might be an exaggeration, but it's definitely an advantage. What to do when there is no high ground to hold? Create your own!
The KU-XX is a massive flying weapons platform. Some might initially think it to be an airship, but make no mistake- this is not a lighter-than-air craft. The six GA1 cannons on the sides (three each), the many AA machine guns, and the thick steel armour ensure that this is a dense craft, more similar to an ocean-going vessel than a conventional aerial vehicle. Indeed, the thing would probably crack tarmac rather than float into the sky, were it not for the large Aligned Gravite antiweights making it just about able to sit on an airstrip on its massive retractable landing gear. To actually become airborne, even more lift is required, and for this the KU-XX contains 3 Molten Gravite lifting engines- large vats of Gravite that are heated to melting point using electrical heaters, then subjected to intense downwards radiation, creating truly preposterous amounts of anti-gravity. Propulsion is provided by six massive propellers, each powered by large Gavrilium Engines (with electrical heaters). Three huge Gavrilium engines hooked up to generators provide power for the lifting engines and other systems.
Two lifting engines are enough to keep the KU-XX airborne if one fails. The armour is thickest on the bottom, for obvious reasons, although it is not exactly thin on the top and sides.
There is a landing pad on top of the ship(?) for small VTOL aircraft.
The KU-XX measures 90*12*12 meters, with a crew complement of 100.

Something like that, anyway. Something unlikely to be less than Very Expensive until we've developed our economy quite considerably- indeed, it'd might even be a National Effort in the first few turns. But even a NE could be useful, I think.
Mind you, it's basically a destroyer in terms of size, so it depends on how the GM chooses to interpret the cost category it falls into- like, you know, infantry weapons are costed differently from tanks, tanks are costed differently from ships. In the aeroplane category this would be extremely expensive, in the ship category it wouldn't be so bad.

[Taricus]

I'd probably extremely expensive in the ship category by virtue of how much special resources it takes, if not NE outright.

[Jilladilla]

I'd probably extremely expensive in the ship category by virtue of how much special resources it takes, if not NE outright.

At the same time however, we cannot let ourselves become paralyzed by what ifs. At some point we're going to have to go ahead with a brand new category of things we haven't done before.

And besides, we don't have to start with a grand super-battleairship; a smaller destroyer or patrol craft would be my opening suggestions; stuff light enough that we can be reasonably certain that it won't be VE; still fulfill a useful role even if we don't invest heavily on the things; and give us a point of data for expense of these sorts of things.

[Parsely]

I am the enemy of practicality and the ally of dope ass hover ships that will flip over, crash, and explode.

Research Credit Design:
GGG-12 (2): NUKE9.13, Parsely

Regular Design:
GHMG-12 (1): Taricus
Gravite (2): NUKE9.13, Parsely

[Rockeater]

I am the enemy of practicality and the ally of dope ass hover ships that will flip over, crash, and explode.

Damn, so qutoble to Out of context funny quotes, but it's saing too much

Research Credit Design:
GGG-12 (3): NUKE9.13, Parsely, Rockeater

Regular Design:
GHMG-12 (1): Taricus
Gravite (3): NUKE9.13, Parsely, Rockeater